Author Archives: Clifford

Well, That’s a Novel Approach

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When the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kevin Nobloch, spoke to an audience at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies earlier this year (July) on the subject of Global Warming, he very much emphasized the initiative of individual states as a means by which progress can be made while the Federal Government spins its tires, and does all that it does to suppress supporting scientific information. He did a very good job of talking about the spectrum of effects that global warming has on individual states, and the spectrum of activities that individual states can […] Click to continue reading this post →

Flying Clams

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There’s a lovely new book (or it sounds that way) out on Darwin. It’s a biography by David Quammen, called “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution”. There was a very nice radio piece on it on NPR’s Morning Edition, on the segment by Robert Krulwich, with an interview with the author. I recommend it, as it is a very pleasant conversation that does not dumb everything down, for a change. From the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Yau Fights Back?

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Well… yikes! Remember my article on the New Yorker piece on the Fields Medal, the Poincare Conjecture, and the mathematicians Perelman and Yau? Remember that I said:

I cannot comment upon whether the hero of the story (Grigory Perelman) is as heroic as painted, or whether the villian of the piece (Shing-Tung Yau) is really as villainous. The anecdotes that are used to do the painting may well be able to be supplemented by other anecdotes that tell another story, as is sometimes the case. I simply don’t know.

Well, it seems that Yau is quite sure that it is not going to stop there. There was a letter sent to the New Yorker and the authors of the article (apparently) on his behalf by legal counsel. It is discussed and can be found on a web page under Yau’s name. The page is in the form of a press release, and I quote: […] Click to continue reading this post →

On The Potential of Women Scientists and Engineers in Academia

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Today, the National Academies released their long awaited report on the potential of women scientists and engineers in academia. The title is “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering”, and it can be obtained here. This is a hugely important topic, and they seem to have done quite an extensive amount of work on this. Here are some quotes from the press release, and then I’ll make some comments of my own at the end:

“Women are capable of contributing more to the nation’s science and engineering research enterprise, but bias and outmoded practices governing academic success impede their progress almost every step of the way,” said Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Fundamental changes in the culture and opportunities at America’s research universities are urgently needed. The United States should enhance its talent pool by making the most of its entire population.”

Much the same can be said (and has been said in, e.g., my earlier blog posts on CV) about the largely untapped talent pool of minorities in general, of course. Quoting further [ … ] Click to continue reading this post →

Converting The Enemy

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An interesting development in the world of chemistry caught my eye just now. Imagine taking that carbon dioxide that is in so many of our emissions, and that is one of the principal agents in the processes contributing to global warming, and using solar energy, converting it into fuel. Now that would really be an interesting possibility, wouldn’t it?

Well, it is possible. Whether it will ever be a viable scheme that makes any practical sense is another matter, but you’ve got to start somewhere. A team of chemists represented by Gabriele Centi of the University of Messina (Italy) presented new results on this process to the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco. From New Scientist:
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